Released three decades ago next week, Pure Phase was Spiritualized‘s second studio album, the drone masterpiece encompassing indie rock and electronica alongside much beloved Spiritualized space rock. The record was recorded onto tape, then cut into usable sections, the parallel producing a phase effect. The core line up for the recording of Pure Phase was main man Jason Pierce, Kate Radley and Sean Cook.
Jason explains why he’s made the decision for Spiritualized to take Pure Phase out on the road in 2025, playing it in its entirety for the very first time.
We live in dystopian times, Jason. These gigs should cheer us up. Or is that too much pressure?
No, I don’t mind a bit of that. I can live with that. The wider screen is a bit of a mess, isn’t it.
How can it be 30 years since Pure Phase came out? Surely that can’t be right.
Can’t say I was counting but it goes fast. It’s like the universe, the further out you go, the faster you’re travelling…
You remastered and rereleased Pure Phase in very recent times under The Spaceman Reissue program, because you wanted to “reclaim” it.
I wanted to put them all in the same place. They were just being thrown out by anybody who wanted to do a small release. Also it felt like it had been lost a little the first time out, more than any of the other albums. (Pure Phase) was overlooked. And it was lockdown. What else were we to do!
Why do you think Pure Phase was passed by?
The whole business is built on luck, essentially. I know people say it’s talent, or it’s skill or whatever, but there’s an enormous amount of luck involved in all of it. And it came out at the wrong time. I don’t mean they were bad, the reviews. I don’t think it was particularly hip at that time and didn’t fit in with what else was around. If you’re not currently in with whatever people are currently saying, “this is a new thing”, then it’s kind of ignored, I guess.
I think the 1990s were particularly bad for that.
I’m not complaining, just I thought it was timely to say, “Hey, this is a good record”. And it was always a favourite of mine. I liked the way the whole thing sounds. It sounded like it was complete. I like the fact that there’s a different mix in either speaker. You know, it was an enormous amount of work to get this kind of strange sound that makes the record work.
The physicality of slicing the tape and taping it together is a skill, and takes time. Quite a task you took on, with Pure Phase.
It was pre-digital, so it was an enormous amount. Every time we cut into it and lined it up, like six or seven seconds later, it would start to drift. So we cut it again and lined it up again. The stuff that was coming back at us was so amazing. It was like we’d hit on this incredible way of making the record sound. But the enormity of the task ahead, we just accepted we were going to be there for a while!
There’s something really beautiful about it that is unrepeatable, because when you get digital, you just line them up and there they are. The offset is absolutely accurate. It doesn’t ever shift. People say all the time about analogue, but there is something really beautiful about something that isn’t as fixed in time. I’ve got no science to back it up, but if you’re just sampling off the best chorus you play, or the best couple of snare beats and firing them in for every snare or every chorus in your song, I’ve got a feeling that the brain has already heard it. Whether you know it or not, your brain has already heard that information. So it’s not firing again. It’s not excited again.
Pure Phase reminds of summer, somehow.
The one time that I remember vividly hearing it, it was a long drive to Cornwall through driving rain and was probably summer, because I don’t know why would be going down there on my own if it wasn’t! But it was the rain and trying to see the road through it, it was the only record in the car for some reason, and I played it, and really, that where I really fell in love with it. And since that, I’d always thought, I want to play this. The actual time of releasing them it wasn’t of our reach to just play it (live). And maybe that it wasn’t what people wanted. They didn’t want the whole of the new record in a show. I felt like we could do it justice now.
Do you listen to your own records?
No, not really. That’s why I’m saying like the time that I remember hearing this record most was that trip down to Cornwall, honestly, probably 20 years ago. But there’s something about the overall sound of it and the story behind the making of (Pure Phase), and I guess a little bit of feeling like it was missed.
When did you decide that you were going to recreate it, live for the first time, end to end?
Oh, years ago. But it’s been just something we talked about rather than did. Maybe the middle of last year, we just said “yeah, we should do this”.
And how are you approaching it? Because it’s a big beast, on lots of levels.
Yeah, but it’s not the scale of, Ladies and Gentlemen (We Are Floating in Space). We did numerous shows with that. It will work, the first conversation was there’s no point saying we’re going to play the record in its entirety if we play to tapes or we’re using backing tracks.
And some of the songs you’ve never performed live, is that right?
Yeah, probably. I think that goes pretty much for most of the albums, unless we’ve gone out and performed the album.
How are you feeling about that?
That’s okay. Something new, something new in life! Yeah, I can deal with that.
Why did you choose bright green for the Pure Phase 2021 reissue?
Why green? Because the whole thing glowed in the dark originally. It came in a box that was glowed in the dark so you could never lose it. And glow in the dark forever. It will never die. Yeah, they’re probably still out there. Glowing!
You’ve got these UK dates in March, and then some festivals including the Pulp-curated Tramlines?
To be honest, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I wait till somebody says there’s a car outside or whatever (laughs) but I know, I know we’re doing Pure Phase, then we’re taking it to America. I had this idea that because it was a smaller album we could tour, we could do more dates, but the thing spiralled. We’ll be doing Pure Phase shows, but not quite as many as would have liked.
Do you like touring?
What I like is the constant movement, the constant going somewhere else, going wherever. I’m not a particularly good tourist, because I don’t really know what I should be doing, but when I’m doing a show, I know exactly what I’m there to do. It’s good to fix it in one place and put it on record and get the records to sound good. But there’s something quite amazing about being in a room where that’s the most important thing in that room at that moment in time.
There’s just something good about chasing that down every night, trying to make it work, make it happen. It’s really important that this is played and not tracked. There’s so many people have track now, and even if they’re not featuring it in all songs, it’s there. They’re playing to the track. So if the drums are not sounding as good as they should be, they can push the track through. And it seems like that’s the opposite of why I got into playing music.
Why did you get into playing music, then?
That thing of chasing something that’s elusive and hard to make it work, and trying to find that, trying to find a way of getting that feeling out every time you play.
And have you caught it?
Frequently. So not always.
Tell me when was the last time?
(laughs) We were on the south coast.
You said once that you wouldn’t mind seeing yourself live
I don’t think that’s gonna happen now (laughs).
It’s only a couple of years since your last album, Everything was Beautiful. Do you write songs all the time?
Pretty much. Some of them survive, and some of them don’t. Some of them are worth pushing for. And the last couple of records I did almost together. I worked on both at the same time, and was exhausted by it. So there’s been a little bit of a reason, rationale, that I’m leaving some space this time. I’m quite obsessive as well. And once I start it’s it becomes seriously important. So I thought I should stay away from that and play some shows.
Spiritualized’s Pure Phase anniversary UK tour dates are:
22 March: Glasgow – Theatre Royal
24 March: Manchester – O2 Apollo
26 March: London –Barbican
29 March: Bristol – Beacon
Jason Pierce Green Man 2023 photo credit: Simon Godley
